What did you do to your GMT today? [Part II]

Following the resolution of my front HVAC issues, the rear system decided to act up. I routinely use the rear system, with the 2nd row ceiling vents turned forward to provide quicker heat relief with less air noise so I can enjoy my music.

Was leaving the office one evening, and noticed the air blowing on my neck from the 2nd row vent was warm, and the rear system is never used for heating, so the temperature actuator must have failed. This morning, pulled the panel to get back there, and tried to remove it, but it wouldn't budge. After some pulling and prying, it eventually came loose, but snapped off part of the stud for the temperature door with it! :duh: :lipsrsealed:

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Replacement actuators seem cheap enough, but can't seem to find the door anywhere. Haven't been to any of the u-pull-it yards in quite a while, and this is NOT the time of year that I'd want to be rummaging for parts out in the open weather.

I may try to repair it with some JB weld or something, but I'm also debating just leaving it as is, since I was able to manually turn it to the cooling side, and that's all I ever use it for. Decisions, decisions...
:undecided:
 
Hard to tell but looks to me like there's still enough of the stud left on the door shaft to still work fine with a new actuator. As long as the door moves freely and was not the cause for the shutdown then there shouldn't be enough force required to move the door to matter to the actuator.
 
On looking closer I could be wrong, depends on the perspective of the photos.
 
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Yeah there's a little bit of meat left on the stud, and I did initially consider that option until I saw how the hole in the actuator was keyed. The weight of the door makes it fall when disconnected, and the shaft has a flathead groove in it, I assume to align the door with the actuator's position when installing, since you cant move the actuator position itself. (normally)

I cracked open the old one, and if I dislodge the motor so the gear comes out of place, I'm able to spin the remaining gears enough to get the port oriented correctly, so this will work after all. I was able to move the door this way, and letting go, the door would fall and move the actuator's position with it.

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How not to install an oil filter.

Recently acquired a 2008 TB LS and doing routine maintenance, not knowing any recent history. I've done a bazillion oil changes and never ran into this tight of an oil filter. After trying several techniques I solved it using an air hammer with a punch attachment. Drove the punch through the filter and then used a cheater bar to turn it. Had to do this 4 times (couldn't turn more than about 30 degrees due to space constraints) before it was loose enough to use an oil filter wrench to finally remove it, even then it still took a bit of muscle. Wow.
 

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That's what happens when quick-lube places hire The Hulk, which is why I never go there.
 
Put new tires on the truck. Got 60K out of the old Michelin LTX AT2's and they still had 5/32 all around but it was time. I wanted to replace with the same but Michelin no longer offers that model in 265/75/R16 so I went with the BFGoodrich Trail-Terrain TA+.
 
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Re-calibrated the PCM for the new tires using a Hypertech Max Energy programmer. Set up Torque Pro to display GPS Speed and vehicle speed then compared the two against the speedometer. Perfect correlation between GPS and vehicle speed at 20/30/50mph while the speedo reads 1 mph high. Works for me!
 
Back in September when I got my tires replaced, the tech told me some of my bushings were bad, and was allowing movement, so my new tires would get worn out. When I asked him which bushings, he wouldn't/couldn't say, so I thanked him and went on about my business.

Paid attention to the treads for uneven wear, and didn't notice any issues, until a trip in April were I drove the truck along some dirt trails. The uneven ground produced a lot of rattling in the front suspension. After that, I'd hear a clunk at certain times, that took me until now to figure out the trigger. This morning, finally got the wheel off to locate the culprit... :coffee:

 
Literally just got the car back on Thursday and now its back in the shop because road workers gave last second warnings to get over a lane and making it impossible to avoid debris in the road leading to a bad tie rod boot not sure if hitting that debris was the final straw or if it was just a one hit that did it.
Kinda weird to me that it was the left side thats bad and not the right since i hit it with the right tires
 

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The amount of grease at the end of boot shows it is not a fresh tear. Plus, that whole side is wet. You have other leaks, IMO.

Got vehicle back from where? You would think a shop would have pointed that out. What work was being done at the shop?
 
The amount of grease at the end of boot shows it is not a fresh tear. Plus, that whole side is wet. You have other leaks, IMO.

Got vehicle back from where? You would think a shop would have pointed that out. What work was being done at the shop?
Shop was looking at and was replacing AC Bearing
it wasn't till after I hit the object I started having a noticeable change in brake timing, steering wheel vibrating, etc
 
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My daughter said the headlights went out on the 2006 TB, only the lows as both highs work fine.

Wife figures maybe the switch or fuses, as what are the chances both went out at the same time.

Both fuses were good on a quick check, ok, had to rip to town right away so no time for further testing. Grabbed some fresh bulbs just in case.

Upon return, no power at fuses, relay must work as it powers the wipers just fine. Both bulbs pulled and good. Test bulb wont fire either. OK, alright, let's dig deeper. HDM, relay 46 comes up right away on a search.

Well, that's the issue. Swapped with 45 and we have light. Read some old posts on here and the old site, 2006+ has some issues but after 21 years, it's allowed to have issues. New GM part at the dealer is 280+ tax! Not going to happen as I can mail order from the US for way less. I picked up the Napa version, which worked off the bat. Someone on this site did not have luck with it though. I'll manually put the lights on next time I'm driving and see how it works.
 
Back after almost a year of dealing with health and family issues.


Had the Envoy put into storage after the oil leak got worse. Found the oil pan was leaking at the rear of the block, so I dropped her off a week ago to have that replaced along with the o-ring for the pickup tube (at 230k, seemed like a good idea with the age and miles). Got the call earlier that she was put back together, but now she's losing oil pressure. So either they pinched the o-ring, or bent the oil pickup tube ever so slightly (starts off at 60 on startup, then drops to 0). So somehow, during this repair, my oil pump just coincidentally failed despite never having an issue with pressure prior to all this. My thinking is the tech did something, because they're comping the replacement + labor for it.
 
Got the call this afternoon the Envoy was ready, headed down to the shop and yeah. The tech who reinstalled the pick up tube, indeed pinched the o-ring causing it to not seal. So they replaced it again, and now the oil pressure is back to normal. Going to monitor the pressure over the next few days, and take note if the engine starts making any abnormal noises. But so far so good.
 
Got the call this afternoon the Envoy was ready, headed down to the shop and yeah. The tech who reinstalled the pick up tube, indeed pinched the o-ring causing it to not seal. So they replaced it again, and now the oil pressure is back to normal. Going to monitor the pressure over the next few days, and take note if the engine starts making any abnormal noises. But so far so good.
Keep a very close eye on the pan seal for any leaks. When a mechanic has to do a comeback, they can rush sometimes and skip some steps or not be very clean in the process.
 
Keep a very close eye on the pan seal for any leaks. When a mechanic has to do a comeback, they can rush sometimes and skip some steps or not be very clean in the process.
Definitely, I'm going to keep an eye on it to make sure everything is good! I appreciate the heads up. My main concern was the fact they dropped it twice, so that helps with being on alert.
 
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Well that didn't take long, went to move the Envoy at work and saw a fresh spot of oil. Sure enough I get home, and see little droplets as it's running in the driveway. :Banghead:
 
If you don't have time to to do it right the first time, how are you ever going to have time to fix it the next time?
I'm good buddies with the shop manager, texted him this morning after work and was told to drop her off Tuesday morning. Gonna let him know I want the work checked over by him each step of the way. I don't want the truck leaving the rack unless it's verified to be fixed.
 
I'm good buddies with the shop manager, texted him this morning after work and was told to drop her off Tuesday morning. Gonna let him know I want the work checked over by him each step of the way. I don't want the truck leaving the rack unless it's verified to be fixed.
The reason I warned about this, is that when I ran shops, I saw some mechanics that rushed to do a comeback and still created a problem. I had to let some of them go, if the problem was repeated on a regular basis.
 
The reason I warned about this, is that when I ran shops, I saw some mechanics that rushed to do a comeback and still created a problem. I had to let some of them go, if the problem was repeated on a regular basis.
I've seen that at the dealership as well, during my brief service writer stint. I'm playing it safe, and requesting that the senior tech be the one to work on it this time. Oh I also need to remind him, I would kindly like my inspection plate put back on the bell housing since that was missing when I went underneath to look for the drip 🙄
 
Dropped Envoy off Tuesday morning, got the call last night that the leak was pinpointed to the rear main seal. Because of the time, and oversight they're going to drop the trans and replace both the seal and cover.
 
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The Sierra is at 107K km. Yesterday, I did an oil change. It's early at 65% OLM and just 4K km on the oil but watching The Motor Oil Geek on YT, found out that the ACDelco 0w20 DexosD (group 3 base oil) oil is garbage so I switched to Mobil1 ESP DexosD 0w20 (PAO base oil). I would have used a higher viscosity oil but I'm still under powertrain warranty. After that, I'll probably switch to 0w30 Mobil1 ESP. Also used a Microgard Select oil filter. They're well built and seem to be good using a silicone anti-drainback and o-ring seal. First time I've seen them here as they are sold by O'Reilley's in the US but a local parts store/supplier has been bought out by them and these filters are now available here. And they are competitively priced compared to Wix, which I can only get in their regular line (no XP for my diesel).

And I also replaced the tranny fluid and filter. Just a pan drop that I do at ~50k km. It was dark but not burnt and there was just normal residue in the pan. Filling is a b!tch as it has just a fill plug on the side and has a specific filling procedure. Fill until it dribbles out, start the truck and run it/power brake the tranny until it reaches between 165-176f, reopen the fill plug and fill until it dribbles out again. I know I don't get all the fluid out this way but there is no easy way to connect a hose to the fluid cooler lines to do a flush/exchange. Using a relatively short interval for the fluid, it should still be pretty good overall. It took about 8 quarts.

Today, I have to change the diesel fuel filter and the cabin air filter.
 
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Going to be hooking up the trailer to the Envoy this weekend. Not going anywhere, just need to move the ATV's out of the trailer one by one, and hopefully get them running. Been about 10 years I think. So using the envoy as a yard mule to move the trailer around as I work on the quads.

Got a set of wheel bearings, battery, carb, fuel pump, oil for the 150
Got a battery, oil, and brake fluid for the 250
Got a battery and oil for the 800.

Those are just prelims. I still gotta drain the tanks on all of them, and splash new gas in, and see if they will event start. I imagine the 250 needs a carb, or a serious carb cleaning. The 800 is Fuel Injected, so who knows. I know what the 150 needs cause it needed those when I parked it.

Then once I get them all fixed, time to sell 2 of the 3, likely the 250 and the 800. My son cant legally ride any of them, and since we do use forestry service trails.... So I gotta buy a 70 or so. Then a 2up for me so I can ride with my other son.
 
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